megaskunk

Despite not being a particularly devout Catholic, I was sad this morning to see that Pope Francis had died. Within the confines of the Catholic faith, he seemed like a pretty cool guy, and comparatively progressive. He was never going to be as progressive as the non-faithful and some of the other denominations wanted him to be, but all things considered it seems like he had good ideas. My fear is that the next pope will be a step backwards and go back to being even more conservative. I know there were people who literally thought Pope Francis was too liberal (which, lol. If the pope is too liberal for you, it's time to reconsider yourself), so I hope the cardinals don't feel pressured to pick someone more traditional. I think I said this the last time a pope died (or maybe when the creepy one resigned, don't remember), but it'd be cool if they could pick like, a black pope or something other than just old white guy. I know the odds of that are incredibly slim though.

Overall I'm just so tired of people trying to push the world backwards. I hate change. Change is scary. But you can't go backwards. Especially when it comes to things like, people's rights. I'm sure there'll come a time when I'm old and new things seem too out there and crazy, but I'd like to hope that I can at least respect people's fundamental rights to exist. Of course by then it'll be probably be like, robots rights and stuff. But we'll see.

For accountability - I need to tackle the fix-it pile this weekend!! There are now 3 things in the pile that need fixing. I can't let another month slip by.
However now it is time to drink tea and read until dinner time.

Well...I had been feeling a little better than the last time I posted, but then I found out this morning that my family's dog Brandy passed away last night. If she'd made it to March they would have had her for 13 years. We don't know how old she was when we adopted her - the shelter said 3 years, the vet thought she might be a little younger, but she had to be 1 or older since she was a like, fully grown dog when we got her. So she was at least 14, probably older. She was in real rough shape when we saw her Tuesday, and it didn't seem like she had much time left. But then yesterday my dad said she seemed to be doing a little better, so I thought maybe the medication adjustment was helping and she'd get better after all. But alas, that was not the case. She was diagnosed with congestive heart disease last year, and it seems like her heart just gave out on her. At least she got to pass peacefully at home, and not at the vet's office like Sasha (our previous dog). No one had to make any hard decisions. So yeah, obviously I'm sad about that now. I keep crying on and off. It's not as bad as when Sasha died. I literally cried myself dry when Sasha died. But she was my like, soul sister dog. I loved Brandy, but I never connected as much to her as I did Sasha. Part of it was probably because once we moved to our apartment I only saw her once a week and just wasn't around her as much anymore. But I think part of it was also just that she didn't have as strong of a personality as Sasha did, or as Charlie does. She was always just a happy, kind of dopey dog. Not that that's a bad thing. But I like dogs with spunk and attitude. Though Buddy didn't have spunk or attitude and he was a really good dog. But I think that's cuz he was a big sweetheart. I will miss Brandy. She was a good dog. She loved going on walks. I'm sad I didn't get to take her on one last walk. But she wasn't walking on Tuesday. Even if she was, I probably wouldn't have taken the dogs for their after dinner walk anyway because it was so cold out. When I lived at my parents' house I would take her on 2 walks a day - a short walk when I got home from work to go check the mail, and then a longer walk after dinner. Even just last week she was still so excited to go on her after dinner walk.
Man, it's so hard losing a pet. They become such an integral part of your life. And then one day they're just gone. You want them to live forever. But then there's also the reality of if they lived forever you couldn't get new pets, and that would be sad too. Dogs are such great companions. Sometimes it really feels like we don't deserve them. The world would probably be a better place if dogs has more say in things. It probably couldn't be any worse at least.
I guess I'm just in for randomly breaking out into tears for the next couple of days. Going to my parents' house next week is going to be the hardest, when we get there and she's not there to greet us at the door. I hope Charlie isn't too confused or sad, cuz that will just make me even sadder. I have to imagine he could sense that something was wrong with her when we were there Tuesday, but I'm not sure how much dogs understand what's happened when one of their friends/family isn't there anymore, esp. if they weren't there at the time of their passing.

So this post isn't just completely depressing - in good news updates, my car finally passed inspection, I completed the fix-it pile last weekend, and the rare breed wool that I ordered arrived today.